Didn't you see that picture? There was enough for only one pot of Navy bean soup today. Those are the gaseous dang beans I ever ate too!
Deboned Picnic Ham ~ Foamheart
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Didn't you see that picture? There was enough for only one pot of Navy bean soup today. Those are the gaseous dang beans I ever ate too!
Yes sir! Crawfish! I am hoping the prices will go down now that the Easter rush is over. You want to laugh? I would like to go crawfishing like the old days. No, not in the swamp so much as along the railroad tracks where we did it as kids. You know we buy 'em cause we are just too lazy. Its pretty dang easy to spend a day and get 3 or 4 sacks.
Thats the first square chest I have seen, do ya like it?
It's called the Igloo Cube, and I'm not a fan. It's awkward to dump. I was looking for something easy to handle solo, but this wasn't the ticket.
Mike
The reason I heat mine (before I cool it to mix in the cure), is so herbs or spices I would also add for flavor would get a chance to steep to release their flavors to the water and its makes dissolving the sugar and salt faster. Its the only reason why. Now its just an automatic routine to heat it. If you throw garlic or onions or lemon or peppercorn, etc.... You get used to doing one way to ensure they are all the same cause you know it will work. I just do it now as a matter of routine. Its like pre-heating the smoke to max before adding meat and then turning it down.
I would love just once to need to build a 55 gal drum of cure for bacon or ham...... It would be such an accomplishment. You would definitely see some pictures.
See I was thinking it should be easier for transport and storage. Glad I asked, now I know the drawback. I am fixing to get a couple of ice chests of large whites and ya always have to buy at least one new chest a year.
Wow Covington and LA 1 goes by your back yard, coolios. At least your on the west side of bayou Lafouche. <Chuckles>
Kevin we only do not eat meat on Fridays in lent.I use my slicing knife for the Ham,it was the only knife long enough.
I used my fisherman skill for the netting ham LOL
Rings Я Us
Smoking Guru
Wonder if anyone changes the brine after a couple weeks when the use it 3 or 4 weeks for a hunk of ham? Some say to freshen it up after a couple weeks.
Rings, morning... Freshening a curing brine.... Once the meat has been cured or partially cured, adding a new brine will increase the nitrite, salt and sugar content of the meat...
When I was a kid, that was a day or two ago, wekk lived in a predominately Catholic area. All the old folks back then, it was all seafood for lent. Then about Junior High it changed and we only got seafood on Fridays. Now its pretty much done as long as it no inconvenience I believe. Personally I like it, I tell everyone I am adopted Catholic coonazz every year during lent. You know how long its been since I have even heard of someone giving up something lent?
I was expecting to see some floats along the leading edge of that net.... LOL
You know my Mom said when I was a little boy she knew I would be a good salesman. We were living in NC and had gone to Texas to visit family on vacation. When we left I had caught a horned toad and picked up a bunch of cockle burs. She said she saw me take the box with the horned toad outside and tell the other kids at home it was a baby dinosaur. Then she heard me selling the cockle burs as dinosaur eggs. I personally remember the horned toad but none of the rest of that story.
You ever hunt rabbits with a dog. The way it works is basically the dags chase the rabbit and the rabbit will circle and come back where it is shot. Mostly all cottontails. Well I had an uncle who caught a Texas jack rabbit and gave to me, which I brought back to the hills of NC and of course before long it got lose (or was turned out to be fair to the poor little rabbit). For years and years they talked about demon bunny they would run the dog into the ground and get them lost. See a Texas Jack rabbit doesn't so circles and runs about twice as fast. Every time we heard some hunter cussing that demon rabbit we'd just smile. Cause we knew the real story.
This would be a good place to ask a question. Well I want to make sure what I believe is correct. If you were to change or reestablish the brine mixture, the new being exactly the same, the meat curing would see little change due to it. Why? Well curing process involves osmosis of the brine carrying the cure and flavors into the meat. At a point the fluid in and out will equalize due to the weakening of the solution out, due to uncured meat fluids and in due to salinity of the meat being equal to the salinity of the brine out. If you change the fluid (brine) you will infact be adding a slightly higher salinity but not by much as the meat as already absorbed the last brine making it have a much higher starting salinity. So changing the the brine will only add a diminished capacity of cure/salt to the meat
Curing brine of 1 heaping TBS. cure = ~22 grams... 1 cup table salt = ~ 275 grams....
1 gallon of water = ~ 3,800 grams..
Total = ~ 4100 grams
22 grams cure = 1.38 grams nitrite...
1.38 grams nitrite in 4100 grams of stuff = 337 Ppm nitrite in solution....
If you add 4100 grams of meat to the brine solution, and equilibrium happens, then the meat and the
brine will equilibrate at 337/2= 169 Ppm nitrite...
Now you make a new brine solution at 337 Ppm nitrite and add the already brine/cured hunk of meat to it....
337 + 169 / 2 = 253 Ppm nitrite is the new equilibrium level....
now one more thing to think about....
If you added a small hunk of meat to that same brine / cure mix... say a 2# hunk = 900 grams or so...
Your 4100 gram brine mix at 337 Ppm nitrite + 900 grams of meat.....
4100 + 900 = 5,000 grams of stuff
4,100 / 5,000 = 0.82 X 337 Ppm = 276 Ppm nitrite in the equilibrium brine... including the meat...
If you add a 15# hunk to the gallon of brine... that's 6,800 grams + 4100 grams = 10,900 grams of total stuff..
4,100 / 10,900 = 0.38 X 337 Ppm = 128 Ppm nitrite in the equilibrium brine... and in the meat...
That's why I recommend adding 1.1 grams of cure#1 for every # of stuff... 150 ish Ppm will be the final results...
1 gallon of water = ~ 3,800 grams..
Total = ~ 4100 grams
22 grams cure = 1.38 grams nitrite...
1.38 grams nitrite in 4100 grams of stuff = 337 Ppm nitrite in solution....
If you add 4100 grams of meat to the brine solution, and equilibrium happens, then the meat and the
brine will equilibrate at 337/2= 169 Ppm nitrite...
Now you make a new brine solution at 337 Ppm nitrite and add the already brine/cured hunk of meat to it....
337 + 169 / 2 = 253 Ppm nitrite is the new equilibrium level....
now one more thing to think about....
If you added a small hunk of meat to that same brine / cure mix... say a 2# hunk = 900 grams or so...
Your 4100 gram brine mix at 337 Ppm nitrite + 900 grams of meat.....
4100 + 900 = 5,000 grams of stuff
4,100 / 5,000 = 0.82 X 337 Ppm = 276 Ppm nitrite in the equilibrium brine... including the meat...
If you add a 15# hunk to the gallon of brine... that's 6,800 grams + 4100 grams = 10,900 grams of total stuff..
4,100 / 10,900 = 0.38 X 337 Ppm = 128 Ppm nitrite in the equilibrium brine... and in the meat...
That's why I recommend adding 1.1 grams of cure#1 for every # of stuff... 150 ish Ppm will be the final results...
Rings Я Us
Smoking Guru
So what happens if you have an Olympic size pool of brine and tossed a ham in it? The meat would equalize and the brine would still remain the same as the original mix started. You drain the pool and make it again.. the meat can not get any higher in concentration. Could it?
Not really... maybe 1 or 2 PPm ....
But, why waste the chemicals on a pool sized bucket...
As a general rule, equilibrium brines are 25-50% the weight of the meat...
1000 grams of meat and 250 grams of brine liquid... That uses the "least" amount of chemicals and forces the equilibrium by having the brining liquid 1250 / 250 = 5X's the expected final Ppm concentration....
Make sense ????
But, why waste the chemicals on a pool sized bucket...
As a general rule, equilibrium brines are 25-50% the weight of the meat...
1000 grams of meat and 250 grams of brine liquid... That uses the "least" amount of chemicals and forces the equilibrium by having the brining liquid 1250 / 250 = 5X's the expected final Ppm concentration....
Make sense ????
100 years ago they cured in a small volume of brine....
100#'s of meat and 42#'s water, 2#'s sugar, 5#'s salt, 1# of cure.... = 50#'s of brine/cure..
and that equals 1.3% sugar, 3.3% salt, and what ever their cure mix is...
100#'s of meat and 42#'s water, 2#'s sugar, 5#'s salt, 1# of cure.... = 50#'s of brine/cure..
and that equals 1.3% sugar, 3.3% salt, and what ever their cure mix is...
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Rings Я Us
Smoking Guru
I see.. yeah.. maybe a laboratory could calculate it and do that without messing up the procedure. We can't .
[
So basically what I said was true. If you allowed for equalization, the brine cure % would have dropped while raising the salinity of the meat. Fresh brine cure would have a slightly higher % than the used brine cure. Which is all the meat could change. Diminished capacity.
Knowing the why's is sometimes as important as the hows. Dave explains it well. Math makes understanding and changing the variables allowable without making people sick, if you are comfortable with your math. But you also know that 1+1+1+5 gals = always safe. Tried, true and USDA accepted.
You don't need to know exactly how many peanuts it takes to get a hamster to turn 100 revolutions on the treadmill. Only that you need to feed it nuts and to disengage the treadmill at 100 turns.
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